


Cosmic Love

by sparxwrites



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Destiel - Freeform, Fluff, Hurt Castiel, Hurt Dean Winchester, M/M, Whump, mid season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-15
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-10 00:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/460441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A falling star fell from your heart, and landed in my eye..."</p><p>Angels are far more complex beings than Dean had ever given them credit for - although, possibly, not as complicated s his relationship with Castiel, which he is beginning to realise goes back far further than he'd appreciated and may, in the end, be inevitable. It is, after all, apparently a love story orchestrated by the universe itself...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Atoms

**Author's Note:**

> This is less a cohesive story than a series of one-shots connected to each other in a vague line, but for the sake of not having 8 seperate stories that really could have been one story with 8 chapters, I'm doing this.
> 
> Inspired by the lyrics of 'Cosmic Love' by Florence + the Machine and set some time post-S4 or mid-S5, I'm not entirely sure.

“Why you?”  
  


It’s a question that’s been on his lips for a long time now, since that low voice growled, “ _I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition_ ,” and those blue eyes looked at him as if they were deconstructing his soul.  
  
There’s the snap of a book shutting, and Castiel looks up from where he’s sat cross-legged on the end of the bed. Dean is lounging in one of the chairs, flicking idly through a book of his own for any information on wyverns. Sam stole the computer and left the motel on a brave quest to find an internet cafe an hour ago, and Dean suspects he won’t return any sooner than he has to.  
  
“I beg your pardon?” Castiel sounds confused, but perfectly calm – his head is tilted slightly to one side, and those wide blue eyes are focused on Dean, _through_ Dean. It sends shivers down his spine.  
  
“Why was it you who, y’know.” Dean shifts in a mildly uncomfortable manner. Even after all this time, it’s still not something he likes to talk about. “Pulled me out of Hell? Not that I’m complaining, mind, but it seems like a pretty important job, given I’m Michael’s vessel and all – and, well, you ain’t exactly the Terminator of planet angel, from what I’ve seen.”  
  
Castiel evidently doesn’t understand the reference, judging by the slow blink he gives Dean, but the question seems perfectly clear. “I...” He pauses, draws a breath, then stops completely as if trying to decide how to word this. Finally, he closes his eyes lightly and breathes in slowly through his nose. “If you wish to understand,” he says quietly, eyes still shut, “then there are three things you must know first.”  
  
Now it’s Dean’s turn to be confused, because he’d been sure it would be a simple answer, something like, “ _I got to you first,_ ” or, “ _we picked names out of a hat._ ” But from the look on Castiel’s face, this is a serious, important, workings-of-the-universe type of explanation. “Yeah, go on,” he says, putting his book to one side and leaning forward.  
  
“You have heard that humans are made from stars before, yes?” His eyes finally open, swirling with something unreadable and focused intently on a point somewhere in the middle of Dean’s chest. Dean feels as if it’s _inside_ his chest, as if Castiel can see through blood and bone and strip him bare of flesh, but that’s ridiculous.  
  
“Yeah, of course. Gets chucked up and time some romantic wants to justify their poetry with scientific shit.” He shrugs his shoulders. “What of it?”  
“Your atoms, all that you are – every atom on this planet, every atom _of_ this planet – came from the stars. This is important.” He doesn’t offer a _why_ , just states it in a quiet, monotone voice, and then adds, “Atoms have memory.”  
  
“What?” This makes little sense, even coming from a wavelength of celestial intent, and Dean frowns. “How?”

“Not a memory as you would understand it.” There is infinite patience in Castiel’s voice, resting next to something taut and sharp and nervous. “A kind of... resonance, maybe. Echoes of the place they were born from, echoes of bonds they once had with other atoms.”  
  
“So...” Dean thinks he knows where this is going. “So you had a piece of the star my atoms come from? Man, that is just... _weird_.”  
  
Castiel twitches, a small, soundless jerk as if Dean had slapped him, and the hunter shuts his mouth with an audible click. “What did I say?” He gets no response, just a small shake of the head, before Castiel continues.  
  
“You are not made of a single star. Many atoms from many stars went in to making the earth. For someone to be made exclusively of the atoms from one star would be almost infinitely unlikely. But... a person will have more of one star in them than of any other. Will be drawn to others the same, with the same shard of star inside their hearts. Will... will fall in love.” His voice is so soft now that Dean has to strain to hear it.  
  
When he does, he bursts out laughing. “God, Cas, you’re a right romantic, aren’t ya? Who’d have thought, Mr. I’m-a-heavenly-warrior is a bigger teenage girl than Sammy.” Castiel hunches over again, that small shudder of movement that looks pained and scared and makes the bottom of Dean’s stomach drop out with worry, and he shuts up again. “So, what, you found a piece of the star _most_ of my atoms come from? You’re arguing over details here, same difference.”  
  
Castiel shakes his head. “No,” he murmurs, eyes slipping gently shut again. He tilts his head back, stares up at the ceiling, draws in a deep breath. His throat is pale and oddly vulnerable, the motion strange and out of character. “You are forgetting the third piece of information.”  
  
“Which is?!” So much for shutting up, but impatience is getting the better of him, and Castiel’s weird behaviour is setting his nerves on edge.  
  
“Humans once knew Lucifer as the Morning Star.” Dean’s heart leaps into his throat, starts choking him, but before his mind can grasp wildly at the fact that the Devil is being mentioned in conjunction with his atoms, Castiel continues to speak. “Few other angels are commonly called by that name, but we all have one. A star that burns with our grace. A star we were born in. A star that is, to all intents and purposes, _us_.”  
  
“And...?” Impatience, confusion, fear crowd his chest, press against his ribs. His eyes are wide.  
  
Castiel slowly lowers his face. There’s nervousness in his expression, but the corners of his mouth are curled up into a quiet, serene smile. When his eyes open, they’re bright and deep and old, and Dean swears he can see galaxies in them. Something in his chest aches, a sharp tug that drags him to his feet to stand before the angel, looking down into those impossibly blue eyes.  
  
And before Castiel even opens his mouth, he _knows_.  
  
“Your atoms, Dean Winchester, once belonged to a star named Castiel.”  
  
 _...A falling star fell from your heart, and landed in my eye..._  
  



	2. Dust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean's not entirely sure what he's feeling, but whatever it is, anger is far easier to cope with.

It’s a straightforward job, a simple salt-and-burn. Some old miser who’d stuck around to thrown knives at his relatives when they came to sell off his things. They’d arrived in town that morning, talked to the relatives and the victim that afternoon, and are now digging in an old graveyard a mile or so out of town.

The man’s only been buried a few weeks, and the earth is still soft and loosely packed. Dean’s grateful for it – it makes the digging nice and easy, and it’ll disguise the fact they’ve been digging at all, meaning less awkward questions.

Sam’s at the Impala just outside the gates, collecting the salt, lighter fluid and matches they’ll need once they’ve finished the digging, and checking no one’s going to stumble upon them up to their elbows in grave dirt. Neither of them are very worried, though, there are no houses for a mile other than the vicarage, and that’s inhabited by a forgetful old man who’s probably already asleep.

The digging, though tiring, is a repetitive motion that’s surprisingly relaxing, and he soon feels his mind drifting off as his muscles take over the automatic movement. He’s jolted out of it, though, when the spade hits wood – and a moment later, a voice behind him says, “Hello, Dean,” very quietly.

He spins around with a half-swallowed yell, which comes out as a sort of snarled growl, and nearly hits a rather surprised-looking Castiel with his spade. “Is this not a good time?” asks the angel softly, tilting his head to one side. “I can come back later, if you wish.”

“No, no, it’s...” Dean wonders how out-of-it he was, if he didn’t hear the low fluttering of wings that usually accompanies Castiel’s arrival. If the creature appearing had been unfriendly, he would probably be dead, and the thought sends shivers up his spine. “You just gave me a shock.”

“Ah.” There is silence for a moment, with only the sound of wind brushing through the branches of the trees at the edge of the graveyard and the distant noise of Sam rummaging through the Impala’s trunk to fill the space. Finally, Castiel speaks. “He was one of mine, you know.”

“Huh?” Dean frowns up at the angel in confusion, trying to wedge the tip of the spade between the lid and the body of the coffin to pry the top off.  
“The man you are about to burn.” He nods at the coffin. “He came from me. His atoms.”

Jealousy, sudden and irrational and alarmingly, searingly hot, runs through Dean. It disappears almost as soon as it has come, but leaves him shaken and weak-kneed and irritable. “That’s what you came here to say?” he snaps, and he knows he’s being unfair, but the jealousy has left confusion, and he doesn’t like being confused. “Well, thanks a lot for that useful bit of information.”

Anger is so much easier to deal with.

Castiel says nothing, just stands there, the breeze dragging his trench coat around his legs and mussing his hair even further than normal. His eyes are closed, head tipped back again. It’s an expression Dean’s come to associate with emotional pain and vulnerability from the angel – but Dean doesn’t see it, is focused on prying the lid off the coffin.

The lid of the coffin comes off with a groan of wood, a sharp splintering sound, and a throat-tightening wave of decomposition. Dean kicks it off, with a good deal more viciousness that is strictly required, and climbs out of the hole. There’s nothing more that can be done until Sam returns with fire and salt.

They stand there for a minute, Dean in sullen silence, Castiel with a faint smile playing at the corners of his lips. It annoys Dean, although if he is honest, he’s just looking for something to lash out at. “The hell are you grinning for, huh?” he demands.

“You have no cause for concern, Dean. He is not the Righteous Man.” It’s cryptic to the point of being nonsensical, but Dean has a horrible feeling the angel knows exactly what’s going through his mind.  
“Well, that makes sense,” he growls, and turns his back on the suddenly hurt blue eyes, trying to convince himself he doesn’t feel guilty.

He only turns back again when he feels heat on the side of his face. The coffin is burning with high tongues of shimmering, pure white flame that do not waver in the strong midnight breeze. Something tells him that anything burning with these flames will not need salt to keep them dead.

And Castiel is gone.

_...I screamed aloud as it burned through them, and now you’ve left me blind..._


	3. Stars

Sleeping is difficult. It’s getting easier – slowly, slowly – but it’s still not an activity Dean can claim to particularly _enjoy_ , exactly. On the bad nights, when he wakes up breathing too fast and soaked in cold sweat, muscles painfully tight and echoes of fear still running through his mind, it’s something he hates.

Tonight is one of those nights. He’s been woken up three times over the past two hours, and after lying in bed for another half-hour, he’s resigned himself to the fact that sleep just isn’t going to come tonight.

Reluctantly, he climbs out of bed, pulls trousers and a jacket on quietly – just because his nightmares refuse to allow him rest is no reason to deprive Sam of his – and grabs an abandoned beer bottle from down by the side of the sofa. The door squeaks slightly as he slips out the room, but Sam just makes a low mumbling sound and rolls over.

No one tries to stop him as he slinks through the darkened corridors. He gives a cursory nod to the receptionist, who looks at him with a bored expression. He imagines she’s seen plenty others like him; washed up, broken, sneaking out in the dead of night to kill their senses with alcohol, cigarettes, drugs. His fingers tighten around the neck of the bottle, knuckles whitening.

He finds himself out in the cool air and darkness of the car park. The motel’s a few miles off the road, too cheap to pay for any kind of lighting in the car park, so the sky is black and clear, unobscured by light pollution and mostly free of clouds. Stars glitter, silvery-yellow against a backdrop of deep, purpling blue. If Dean was a poetic man, he’s sure he’d think of some metaphor or another.

As it is, he merely pulls the cap off his beer, raises it to the sky, and grunts, “Cheers.”

The stars don’t answer, and the half-expected flutter of wings doesn’t rustle through the walled-off park, so he raises the bottle to his mouth and swallows. It doesn’t burn in the same way whiskey would, and he half-mourns it – he could do with the warmth, the distracting heat – but it’s vaguely warming in his stomach. He’s not complaining, anyway.

He leans back against the hood of the Impala with a sigh, taking another mouthful and looking up at the stars. He stares at them, eyes twisting and curving along the imagined lines between stars, catching on the wispy edges of half-formed clouds. 

All too soon, the bottle is empty. He frowns at it, disappointed, and hooks it between the knuckles of his index and middle finger. It swings absently, rocking backwards and forward, as he tilts his head back and calls, “Cas!”

He hadn’t expected a reply, certainly not an immediate one. Between one breath and the next there is the flutter of wings and the dry rasp of feathers, and Castiel is standing next to him. His face is impassive as ever, eyes blue and questioning. “You called?”

The look on the angel’s face kills the apology that had half-grown in his throat. It shrivels and dies, and so instead he gestures to the sky with the hand holding the bottle and asks, “Which one’s you?”

“I beg your pardon?” Castiel seems so surprised that he forgets to look emotionless, and confusion floods his face.  
“The stars,” sighs Dean, “which one of ‘em is Castiel?” Despite his occasional lightning-flashes of brilliance, he always forgets how clueless the angel can be when it comes to human interaction or thought processes.

“...You did not seem very happy last time I brought the subject up,” points out Castiel, and there’s a hesitancy to his voice. “Maybe we should not discuss this.” He doesn’t say it, but Dean still hears the, “ _I didn’t like it when you were angry at me,_ ” and it sends a dull throb of guilt through his alcohol-dulled chest.  
“That’s ‘cos I’m a human, and we’re weird, unpredictable little fuckers,” he says, in a conversational sort of way, and then drags a hand across his face. “Just answer the damn question, yeah?”

Castiel bristles again, but he still can’t find the apology, and so he just shifts a bit closer and hopes it’ll get his message across. He’s not sure it does, but the angel relaxes slightly and turns his face to the skies too, so maybe he’s not too angry. Dean hopes so.

“I am...” He squints at the sky, head tilted to one side, and worries his bottom lip with his teeth. It’s not an action Dean’s seen him do before, and he wonders if Castiel picked it up from him or Sam. The thought makes warmth blossom in the pit of his stomach, although he’s not sure why.

“There.”

A hand grabs his, unexpectedly, and pulls it up to point at the sky. He realises what Castiel’s doing and points his index finger towards the dark patch of sky. Castiel moves even closer until they’re shoulder to shoulder, Castiel’s head next to his face, his hair on Dean’s cheek, peering down the line of Dean’s arm and adjusting where their linked hands are pointing. “Right there,” he says softly, and smiles slightly.

Dean frowns. “I don’t see anything. It’s just darkness.”  
There’s a flicker of something like disappointment on Castiel’s face. “Ah,” he murmurs softly, and his shoulders drop. “I... I am a long way away. Perhaps your vision is not sharp enough to pick up the light.”

With the uncomfortable feeling that he’s just made a major faux pas in angel etiquette and has no idea what it is, Dean throws an arm around Castiel’s shoulder and smiles awkwardly. “Hey, no biggie,” he says with a shrug. “I bet Sam could find a picture on google or something – he can find pretty much everything, and there are tons of pictures of stars.”

“I... would like that.” Castiel’s voice is soft and surprised and full of warmth, and his head leans just an inch closer to Dean’s. The sides of their heads touch lightly, skin against skin through a layer of flattened hair, and-

“ _Oh_.”

The noise is dragged from Dean’s lips before he can stop it, because the sky is suddenly lit up like midday. It blazes with light, stars suddenly balls of brilliant light instead of dull, glowing points, swirls of brilliant colour and swathes of galaxy painted across the sky for him to see. And there, at the very tip of his still-outstretched hand, in the middle of a patch of sky that is still lightless, is Castiel – small and silvery-blue and achingly, perfectly beautiful against the purple of the night sky.

Castiel flinches at the noise, drawing away and looking at Dean in alarm, and the vision disappears. The night is dark again, and the sky seems positively boring after the Van Gogh masterpiece he’s just been treated to. “Dean?” he says quietly, standing in front of him and peering at his face, “Are you okay? Have you been hurt?”

“I saw...” The bottle drops from his fingers, hits the tarmac with a sharp noise and rolls away across the parking lot. “I saw...” The words stick in his throat, lodged somewhere along with the apology. It’s so much more simple to lean forward and curl his outstretched arm around the back of Castiel’s head, knot fingers into his dark, messy hair and pull his head down until their lips meet.

They stay there like that for a minute, Castiel solid and warm and unmoving, until eventually Dean pulls his lips away and presses his forehead to Castiel’s. The angel still doesn’t move, and he feels the beginning of dark, crushing, uselessness welling up in his chest. It’s not a new feeling.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes, lips inches from Castiel’s, eyes closed in hopelessness. “I’m sorry, _god_ , Cas, I’m sorry, I just- I need-” What does he need? He doesn’t know, doesn’t _know_ , and the breath rushes out of him in a soft, choked noise, finger tightening in Castiel’s hair.

For a long moment, Castiel still doesn’t move, doesn’t speak – Dean’s not even sure he’s breathing. And then, so softly Dean’s sure he’s imagining it, the angel murmurs, “I have known what you need for a long time now.” A hand touches his chin, warm fingers resting lightly against his skin, and tilts it upwards so he’s looking reluctantly into Castiel’s eyes. “I have just been... unsure as to how to give it to you.” The corners of his mouth curl up slightly in amusement. “You are a hard man to give gifts to, Dean Winchester.”

Dean exhales, shakily. “I...?” But he’s got no idea how to finish that question, no idea how to even begin it.  
Castiel just smiles, closes his eyes, and simply says, “Yes.”  
“But... you- you’ve got no idea what I was going to say,” objects Dean, although part of him is screaming at him to stop complaining and start being _happy_ for once.

And Castiel laughs. Quietly, honestly, and Dean tries to remember hearing him laugh before but he can’t. It’s a beautiful sound, rough and low and gentle. “Of course I do.” His other hand finds Dean’s heart, presses gently over it. “Atoms call to atoms.”

The noise Dean makes, low and broken in the back of his throat as he reaches up to capture Castiel’s mouth again, isn’t even human. And, well, if he holds on too tightly and kisses too needily and his eyes shine slightly too bright in the starlight, who is Castiel going to tell?

_...The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out, you left me in the dark..._


	4. Supernovae

Dean is only just coming to appreciate exactly how not human Castiel is. How much  _more_ than a human he is. Castiel is a miniature universe in and of himself, a world and a lifetime's worth of sensations and knowledge and experiences.

His skin is both soft and rough underneath Dean's tongue as he traces the lines of Castiel's neck, his chest, his back, the insides of his thighs. He's trembling, burning deep-set heat into Dean's palms as they rest flat against his stomach, and the shadowed angle of his collarbone tastes of cinnamon and vanilla and something Dean can't quite place. It lingers on his tongue, sharp and stinging and pleasant, even after he's pulled away.

The brilliant blue of his eyes contrasts sharply with the darkness of his pupils, blown with need and disbelief, his iris a collar of vivid colour around the edge. Dean can't see the stars he once thought he saw reflected in them any more, but that's okay – he can read the universe in the shadows that curve out from Castiel's shoulders instead, the dark holes where his wings should be filled with a thousand glimmering pinpricks of light and clouds of deep, shifting nebulae in the dimness of the room.

He can't resist the urge to reach out, to try and sink his fingers into them – into what, though? He's half convinced his hands will find smooth, silky feathers to burrow into, half convinced he will fall through the dark tears in the fabric of the universe and find himself floating in airless space. In reality, neither of these things happen, though. His hands merely slide through the shadows and come to rest in the tangled bedsheets. Pins-and-needles dance around his wrists, like he's immersed his hands in cold water.

Though he hasn't touched the wings, hasn't found anything  _to_ touch, Castiel reacts as if Dean had dragged light fingers down his chest and worshipped his stomach with kisses. He arches his back, the shadow-wings thrashing, a strangled, breathless cry drawn from his throat in surprise. His eyes open wider, although Dean wonders if that's even possible, and his mouth falls open, head tilting back and baring the pale skin of his neck.

Dean dips his head, presses sloppy, open-mouthed kisses against this new area for exploration. Castiel tastes like an alien world – all dust and strange spices and the unexpected prickle of static against the damp of his mouth, both painfully familiar and jarringly new in some small way he can't quite explain. It's addictive, intoxicating, both the taste and the noises it drags from Castiel. High whimpers and choked gasps that he never wants to stop.

"Dean," says the angel, " _Dean_ ," and it never ceases to amaze him how Castiel says his name, how he makes it a promise, a threat, a question, a demand. A prayer. A thing of worship and reverence. He doesn't deserve it, any of it, doesn't deserve this – and he knows, he  _knows_ , that he will pay for it in blood somehow later. Because the world does not let people like him to keep people like Castiel.

But for now, when they are together and the lights are low and the universe curves and arches around and above him in the sweeping curve of wings, he will take it, take it all, every breath and heartbeat. Take it and keep it for when this is no more. And, although it is hard, although he wants to guard himself and hold everything back, he's drawn in by Castiel, his star.  _His_. There's a clawing need in his chest, so sharp and heavy it hurts. And so he  _gives_ , and keeps on giving, until there's nothing left, until he can't breathe because the empty space left in his heart is being filled by Castiel's whimpers.

And when he finally leans up and kisses Castiel's lips, the angel tastes of sweetness and blood, gasping moans and burning heat. An explosion of stardust and fireworks behind his eyes and in his throat, overwhelming and perfect and blindingly beautiful. The taste of a dying star, a fallen star, burning brighter than ever before it finally goes out.

If Dean has his way, his star will keep shining for a long time yet.

_...No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight, in the shadow of your heart..._


	5. Space

They’ve never been very good at staying out of each other’s personal space, even before... before whatever it is they now have. Cas, because his understanding of the whole concept of people needing room to breathe was tenuous at best and nonexistent at worst and Dean, because, well, he was just extremely reluctant to tell the angel to move. Because, not that he’d _ever_ tell anyone, he found Castiel’s presence rather comforting.

So nothing much changes after- afterwards. Dean’s still so hesitant to put names on it, because names bring boundaries and promises and bonds, and he’s not sure he can cope with sudden solidity. Solid things can break, shatter, and god knows he’s good enough at breaking things. No, it’s better for now to keep it soft and ephemeral and barely there, felt only in brushes of hands and lips on lips, shoulders leaning against shoulders and quiet whispers.

Cas doesn’t seem to mind this one bit.

He’s surprisingly responsive to Dean’s touches, for all he usually has his block-of-concrete routine going on. He’s ticklish – something Dean discovered and takes advantage of with an inordinate amount of glee – on the soles of his feet and the backs of his knees and the hollow between his hips. He leans almost unconsciously towards Dean, touching shoulders  

There are other things Dean is discovering, small things. Like the fact Cas finds it physically impossible to lie still when they’re in bed together and Dean’s trying to sleep. The way that, if he’s clever, he can coax the most desperate, needy sounds imaginable from between the angel’s lips, and _god_ does he love them.

Like how Castiel’s warm, ridiculously so, and Dean’s favourite thing to wake up to is now Castiel, curled around him, head tucked into his neck and breath ghosting softly across his skin. Especially if the weather’s cold or the motel is draughty.

And as for Castiel, he’s learning things too. Like the noises Dean makes when he kisses him, or links their fingers together in public, or when they’re alone and he traces burning trails with his fingers across the hunter’s bare skin. How, when Dean swears, it doesn’t always mean he’s in pain. How Dean makes a _wonderful_ pillow, and maybe this sleeping lark isn’t all bad.

Dean will complain endlessly about the cuddling, but when he thinks Castiel’s asleep – which is ridiculous, he never sleeps – he’ll lie there and run his fingers through Cas’s hair and murmur small, soft things in his ear. Once, he even said something that sounded like, _“I love you.”_ Castiel can’t let himself hope quite that much, though, not yet.

Sam?

Well. He’s suprised, but not in a, “ _wait, what, I just walked in on my brother kissing a male angel_ ,” sort of way. More in a, “ _wait, what, my emotionally constipated brother actually stopped moping and staring long enough to say something_ ,” sort of way. Not to mention, the look on Dean’s face when he opened the door was _hilarious_. He’d sort of jumped, scooted away from Cas, looked guilty at abandoning his angel, scooted a bit closer to him again, and then glared at Sam as if daring him to comment.

Castiel, being Cas, had simply looked at Sam with a neutral sort of expression, and calmly stated, “Your brother is a very good kisser.” At which point Sam had started both laughing and choking, because _god,_ that was one piece of information he could do without.

But for all he laughs at them, for all he needles Dean constantly and makes endless jokes with references Cas doesn’t get, he’s happy for them. Happy that they’re happy. Because they’re a family, and his brothers – both the blood-relative and the recently adopted one – deserve some happiness after everything.

Or before everything.

But he doesn’t want to think like that.

_...And in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat, I tried to find the sound..._


	6. Heat Death

The floor beneath his knees is damp, slick and slippery and black-red in the light of their torches. The concrete’s rough, even through his jeans, and the blood soaking through them is warm and sticky and never going to come out, but Dean doesn’t care, doesn’t care at all.

The only thing he cares about is the frantic stuttering of Castiel’s heart under his fingers, which are splayed around the angel sword lodged deep in his chest in a pathetic attempt to stop the bleeding.

“Hey. Hey, Cas. Stay with me,” he grits out, pressing down harder, ignoring the thick, drying blood oozing over his hands, or the way the extra pressure forces a low, whining noise of pain from Castiel’s mouth. “You can’t go dying on me now. Sam’s calling an ambulance, you’ve just got to- to hold on, you hear?”

Castiel drags in a wet breath of air, exhales bubbles of blood that drip out the corner of his mouth, and chokes on whatever he was going to say. His fingers, shaking and smeared red, scrabble bluntly at the floor and then manage to curl around Dean’s atop his chest, nails biting into the soft sides of Dean’s hand despite his best efforts not to hold too tight.

“D-de- e- ah-”

Dean loves the way Castiel can put inflections in his name, twist the single syllable to mean anything and everything between love and hatred and concern, but this is one meaning he could do without. The fear, the pain, the plea for Dean to look at him.

He has to physically force himself to meet Castiel’s eyes, to look down into the star-scattered blue, bright and unfocused with pain. The angel drags in another sticky breath, draws on some inner reserve of strength and focuses on Dean’s face with an extraordinary effort of will. “L-let go,” he manages to force out, through the blood slowly filling his throat and lungs.

Dean shakes his head, frantic and furious and so far in denial he’s almost coming out the other side. “No, don’t you dare, you son of a bitch,” he growls, presses down harder, hears Castiel’s cry of pain and feels fresh, hot blood stream over his wrists. It’s not enough, was never going to be enough, but he can’t let go. He can’t. “You don’t get away from me that easily, you hear?”

Castiel swallows convulsively, arches his back with a whimper of pain. His eyes slip shut, and when they finally flicker open again after a heart-stopping second, they’re cloudy and dulled with pain. “Let go,” he breathes, the words barely more than a damp whisper that Dean’s amazed he can hear over the terrified blood pounding in his ears. “Let go.”

“I _can’t_ ,” he almost shouts, and his voice breaks half way through, shatters into choked pieces of sobs that catch in his throat like barbs. “I can’t, god, I can’t do this on my own again, I need you, please-”  
“S-sam,” rasps Castiel, and every word is an effort now, stealing more of the precious air that’s slowly becoming red-tinted, and Dean shakes his head.  
“He’s not _you_ , Cas, I need you, I need-”

And then _Castiel_ is shaking his head. “ _I_ needed- I always-” He breaks off, coughing, as his face screws up in pain and Dean presses down again, although the angel’s chest is a bath of wet and red and escaping life.

The fingers around his hand tighten, briefly, and one lifts up to touch his temple. It leaves tacky, red fingerprints on Dean’s skin, but he doesn’t care. He leans into the touch, crushes his eyes shut against the burning behind them.

“Look for me.” Castiel’s voice is stronger, worryingly so, and when he speaks it’s low and urgent and breathless. “Look for me, in the sky. I’ll wait for you. I promise.”

“No!” yells Dean, because he knows that strength, the burst of energy before death, and fear is ice cold and burning hot and tearing his chest down the middle. He can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t even see properly. “I love you! Cas, damnit, do you hear that? I love you, you stupid angel!”

The fingernails are no longer digging into his skin.

“...Cas?” He’s scared of his own voice, how small and childlike it is, and his hands slowly relinquish their pressure in the swamp of sticky red and damp trench coat to search for a thready pulse in the angel’s neck. His hands shake so badly it takes him a moment to realise the shivering underneath his fingertips is himself.

Nothing.

Castiel’s blue eyes are cloudy and empty, blood already drying, the heat of his skin dissipating out into the cold air. And Dean’s just sat there, mutely, shaking his head and covered in his angel’s blood up to his elbows and trying to work out exactly what’s happened. Because his world has stopped, the whole world should have stopped, why has silence not fallen and the stars not gone out?

It takes the ambulances another ten minutes to arrive. Dean lets them take the body, unresisting when they force him to unwrap his arms from Castiel’s shoulders, move his lips from the angel’s forehead. They take the body, load it into the white vehicle.

Sam steps forward, pulls Dean to his feet, and by some unspoken agreement takes Castiel’s place in his brother’s bloodied arms, pulling him into a tight hug and ignoring his shaking. Sam buries his head in Dean’s neck but Dean looks up, up, tilts his head back to stare at the sky and, in an automatic gesture for seeking comfort, finds the empty patch of darkness in the night sky where Castiel is.

Where Castiel-

-where Castiel _was_.

And Sam is there to catch him when the world finally falls silent and then dark and grinds to a halt.

_…But then it stopped, and I was in the darkness, the darkness I became..._


	7. Star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for not updating in so long! Just started a new school and real life has been a little hectic...

He doesn’t find it until a week later. Until after Castiel’s been cremated and his ashes buried, until after they’ve both burnt their bloodstained clothes, until eventually Sam quietly points out that it’s time for them to move on, that there are other towns in need of their help and that maybe Dean needs to get back on the road, needs that help to move on.

Dean doesn’t argue because Sam’s right, he’s been in this crappy motel room for over a week now and the empty, scooped-out hole above his heart isn’t fading or filling. He needs to be distracted, and maybe a hunt will help him bury this ache beneath adrenaline and blood and alcohol.

So they’re packing up. Sam’s over his side of the room, grabbing discarded t-shirts and socks and shoving them into a duffle bag, piling salt and guns and bullets and hex bags in too and checking under beds and bedside tables to make sure they’re not missing anything. Guns are not only costly to replace, but make people ask awkward questions. Ditto with hex bags or charms on the awkward front.

The same thing’s happening on Dean’s side, albeit slower. Even after a week, he still feels slow, dizzy, shocked. Things have to be done carefully, deliberately, or he’ll make mistakes and get frustrated with himself, and then he’ll start shouting and throwing things. And Sam doesn’t deserve to have to cope with that, so he’s holding himself together.

Clothes are picked up one at a time, dropped in a crumpled heap half-in, half-out of his own duffle bag. His various weapons stacked haphazardly on top. And then, finally, his hands find the trench coat folded in his bedside table. He couldn’t let them burn it, couldn’t let it go – couldn’t get the blood out, either, there’s still a faded pinkish stain across the front, but it’s _Castiel’s_. Was Castiel’s. It hurts, every time he has to remember to use the past tense. Something in his chest cracks a bit further as he picks the coat up, fingers digging into the tan material, and tosses it onto the pile of other clothes.

And that’s when he finds it.

A small box – brown, cardboard, unremarkable. It falls from somewhere in the depths of the trench coat, a pocket, most likely, and hits the floor with a dull thud. Sam doesn’t look round, but Dean does, bends into a crouch and picks up the box in gentle, careful, terrified fingers. He turns it over once, twice, shakes it. Something rattles inside.

He wants to open it.

He does not want to open it.

After staring at it for several seconds, which seem to last hours, or possibly lifetimes, his fingers make the choice for him. Without much conscious thought, his fingers slip the lid off and let it fall to the floor. And inside the box, lying flat against the bottom, is... well. He’s not entirely sure.

It _looks_ like a pendant. Probably is a pendant, shaped like a teardrop, the pointed end curled over so a long, plaited leather thong could slip through the hole and allow the pendant to rest flat against a person’s chest. It would be an unremarkable thing, about the size of a grape, glassy and plain – would have been, were it not for the glowing, swirling blue light inside.

Dean’s fingers tremble as they scoop it out of the box, and he holds it flat in his palm, scrutinising it. Demanding it give up its secrets. It says nothing, but the bottom of the box does; a plain piece of paper lies there, folded in half, with _Dean_ written simply on the outside. He picks it out with hands that shake, one fisted shut over the pendant, flicks it open, and reads.

_A fragment of starlight._

He acts without thinking, throwing the pendant across the room, crushing the paper in his hands with a low, agonised noise. The pain in his chest makes him physically double over, eyes shutting, his breath coming in tight, hissed draws through his gritted teeth. He hears Sam, over the other side of the room, call over to him. He manages, “Fine,” in response, forces himself to uncurl and breath normally. 

Repress it, always repress it, the Winchester motto. Everything is fine, even when nothing is.

The pendant lies across the room from him, gleaming dully. He walks over, slowly, picks it up. Stares at the way the colours twist and turn inside the glass, swirling in blues and silvers and whites that are impossible to follow. The light is restless, and... familiar.

It takes him a moment to recognise it, and when he does, he almost falls over. _Grace_. He’d seen the same thing in the bottle full of Anna’s grace, the one Uriel had carried. He is holding, in his hand, a piece of Castiel’s grace. A piece of his angel. Something that is not supposed to exist, because Castiel is dead and his grace is supposed to have died with him, but is somehow still _here_.

For the first time in a week, he smiles.

_...I took the stars from my eyes and then I made a map, I knew that somehow I could find my way back..._


	8. The Darkness at the Finish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The smell of blood comes instantly, there's only darkness at the finish..._
> 
> All things must come to an end.

And so this is the price they pay for stopping the apocalypse – a field drenched in sticky red, a field filled with the bruised, broken, swollen corpses of the unfortunate humans taken as vessels by angels and demons. A field in which Dean Winchester is just another body, albeit a body more alive than any of the others around them.

Although maybe not for much longer.

A long time ago – although it feels like barely a blink’s worth – when he had first met Raphael, Castiel had warned him of the damage an archangel could do to a human’s mind. He never mentioned the pain, though, the agony of grace detaching from human flesh it had bound itself utterly and intimately to, hooks of angelic power ripping organs and tearing chunks of flesh away as they attempted to detach themselves.

Castiel.

It’s been four years, long and bloody and exhausting, and he’s not once heard the flutter of familiar wings during that time, not seen those curious blue eyes. Though the grace still shines from its place on the leather thong around his neck – reddish, now, rather than silver-blue, the blood smeared over the glass tainting the light – there’s still been a knot of loss and longing curled tight in the pit of his stomach.

It seems to be lessening, though, in the slowly darkening battlefield amongst the smell of blood and scorched flesh. For a moment, Dean wonders if the internal bleeding has managed to wash it loose. Then he realises he’s dying, and his bruised lips curl up into an involuntary smile.

“Dean!” The frantic screams belong to Sam. The brother who was absent from the battle, not through his own choice, but because Dean handcuffed him to a staircase in a locked house thirty miles away and left him snarling every curse under the sun as he took the Impala and left to say yes to Michael.

“Dean!” howls Sam again, and Dean hears the desperate terror in his voice and feels his heart break. “Dean, where are- are you here- _Dean_ -”

“Sam,” he rasps out, voice raw and damp but still audible in the almost absolute silence. “Hey, Sammy, over here.” Despite the broken, ripped, bleeding mess that is his body, he still manages to lift a hand. It surprises him for a moment as he suddenly realises the lack of pain, and then he realises with a jolt of surprise that either this is some perk of archangel’s hosts, or Michael had decided to grant him one final mercy.

He suspects it’s the latter, which surprises him. Of all the conditions he demanded of Michael – no destroying humanity, no interfering with Earth, get rid of the demons, Sam must be protected, Sam must _always_ be protected – sparing himself pain never entered into the equation. He feels a tiny, unexpected spark of gratitude to the archangel, if only for giving him a chance to talk to Sam one last time, rather than spending these precious minutes screaming.

There’s the thud of footsteps, something crunching that Dean thinks vaguely is probably a corpse’s fingers, and then Sam is falling to his knees beside him, hands hovering over his body as if attempting to work out where to try and stop the bleeding first.

Dean grins lopsidedly, spits out blood and mutters, “Don’t bother.”  
Sam ignores him, mouth running in useless babble about, “it’s okay, Dean, it’s going to be okay, you’re going to be fine, I promise,” and if seeing his brother’s panicked grief wasn’t so painful he’d be appreciating the parallels with him and Cas.

As it is, he simply reaches out and grabs one of his brother’s wrists. The simple motion is exhausting – the pain may be gone, but he’s still feeling the strain his injuries are putting on his body, the increasing light-headedness as his blood leaves him in steady millilitres. “Shut up,” he says firmly, which may not be the most tactful thing, but certainly shuts Sam up. “It’s not gonna be okay for me, bitch, ‘cos I’m going to die. So stop wasting your breath and listen to me, because it might still be okay for you.”

Sam nods, face pale and drawn, and he’s worrying his lip between his teeth. “Talk,” he says quietly, catching Dean’s fingers between his own and squeezing.  
Dean squeezes back as best as he can. “You’re gonna be safe. One of- the conditions. When I said yes. Gonna be safe. They’ll protect you, the demons are gonna be gone, he promised, the world’ll be safe-”  
“Shh.” Sam bites his lip, takes one of Dean’s hands in both his own. As clichéd as the gesture is, it gives him some modicum of comfort, helps him swallow against the ball of molten lava that’s burning in his throat. “Don’t- don’t hurt yourself.”

“An’ Sam?” Breathing’s getting difficult now. It feels like there’s something sitting on his chest. Death is getting closer, a light smile playing around his lips.  
“Dean?” Sam’s voice is tight, strangled, and Dean hopes to god those aren’t tears in Sam’s eyes because he really, _really_ doesn’t want that to be his last memory of his baby brother.

“White picket fence,” he manages to force out, and grins. “Go get ‘em.”

Sam’s shocked enough that he grins back, even through the tears, his shoulders shaking with quiet laughs that are sliding slowly towards sobs. Dean focuses on it, focuses on the sound of the laughter, and it’s almost enough to block out the quiet voice of Death by his ear as he murmurs, “Dean Winchester.”

“Just keep coming back for more, don’tcha?” he asks, and the sound of the outside world begins to blur and fade. At least Sam’s still laughing. Dean can bear that, having Sammy’s laughter as the last thing he hears. “Can’t get enough of me, hmm?”

Death’s chuckle is short and dry. “I’ve got quite the surprise for you,” he says, and there’s something like amusement in his voice.  
“Oh, really?” Dean laughs at that, because after everything, after demons and dying and hell, after falling in love with a male angel and saying yes and surviving the apocalypse – if only barely – he doesn’t think there’s much that can surprise him. “Try me.”

Death says nothing, just smiles, and reaches down to slide Dean’s eyes shut with two fingers.

He lies there for a long while, eyes closed, waiting for something to happen. Nothing does. So he opens them, stares at the sky above his head for another while – night has fallen, and the sky is black and glittering above him. For an insane moment, he wonders if _this_ is Death’s surprise, if he’s still alive, but then he realises the blood and the bodies are gone so no, he’s definitely dead. Maybe even permanently this time.

“You are awake, then.”

The voice hits him like lightning to his spine and a blow to his head. He jolts to his feet, jumping backwards, and spins around to come face to wide-eyed face with Death’s little surprise.

For a long moment, he just stands and stares. Eventually, he manages a single breathless word. “C- _Cas_?!” His voice cracks halfway through the sentence, and he stumbles forward on shaking legs to half-fall into Castiel’s arms. He digs his fingers into the back of Castiel’s trench coat, clings on for dear life, buries his head in the side of the angel’s neck.

And he cries.

Castiel just holds him, warm and solid and very, _very_ perfectly real. Hands smooth up and down his back, rubbing gently between his shoulder blades as he sobs and chokes and tries to tell himself to pull it together. It doesn’t work.

Finally, he manages to pause for breath, and Castiel murmurs, “It’s okay. I don’t mind. We have got eternity, after all.”  
“How-?” Dean just tightens his arm around the angel, pulling him closer, as if somehow they might just overlap and slide into being the same person, never to be separated again.

“It turns out that, one of those times I was resurrected, whatever brought me back deemed it fit to give me a soul. My father... works in mysterious ways.” He smiles sadly. “And in all the confusion after the apocalypse, no one’s really paying attention to the bureaucratic side of things. I... asked Death if I could have your soul,” says Castiel, almost shyly. “He agreed. I think he has a soft spot for you.”

Dean laughs at that, wild happiness and confusion coursing through every inch of his body. “Yeah. Where - where _are_ we?” he asks, because this doesn’t look a thing like Hell, but he’d imagined Heaven as slightly more... pearly white gates or angry angels demanding to know what took him so long to start the apocalypse.

“A little corner of heaven.” Castiel waves a hand as if it’s no big deal, blushing slightly. “I, ah, commandeered it, considering no one was looking after it, and made this.” He gestures out at the field, the knee-height grass and the glorious, star-spangled sky above that is slowly lighting up in shades of red and orange as the sun rises. In the distance, Dean can make out flowers, a hill, a copse of trees, and..

“Is that a house?” he says in mild amazement, pulling away from Castiel slightly – one hand still clutching the angel’s wrist as if he half-expects him to disappear at any moment.

And now Castiel is _definitely_ blushing. “Ah. I. Ah.”

“Cas?” 

“Iwasratherhopingyoumightliketostayhere.” The words fall out of Cas’s mouth in a cascade, and he turns to Dean, cups his face in long-fingered hands and looks at him with painfully hopeful eyes. “I was hoping you would stay here. With me. For... forever.” He looks nervous, borderline terrified, by the idea of refusal.

As if Dean would say no to the angel who has _built him a house in a corner of heaven._ Because, yeah, if that isn’t freaking _amazing_ then he doesn’t know what is.

“Cas...” he says slowly, trying to find the words. “I... told you something once. Well, lots of times, really, but I’m not all that sure that you heard me. So, I’m gonna say it again now, just to get things clear and stop you from saying idiotic things like that question you just asked, yeah?”

Castiel nods, eyes wide.

“I _love_ you, you stupid, wonderful, _idiot_ angel,” growls Dean, grabbing Castiel’s coat lapels – he doesn’t bother to question why he’s wearing the coat here, in heaven, because it seems to be the angelic equivalent of a comfort blanket – and pulling him forwards so their noses are touching, foreheads touching, lips barely centimetres apart. “And if you think for one single second that I am _ever_ letting you go again, then you are sorely mistaken.”

“I love you,” murmurs Castiel back, and there’s pain and longing and _awe_ in his voice. He makes it sound like worship, like promise, like a prayer. “Dean Winchester, I _love you_.”

“Good,” mumbles Dean back, and tilts his head to kiss him, soft and gentle. They have four years of stolen time to steal back, and all of eternity to enjoy it in.

_...Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too, so I stayed in the darkness with you..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it! Thank you all for reading and commenting and kudos-ing, it's made me so happy that people have actually enjoyed this. The title for this chapter is pulled from a song called "Barricade" by Stars. Most of the lyrics don't fit this chapter terribly well, but that particular line does, and the general feel of tired melancholy is rather appropriate, so I hope you like it all the same.


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